Yes that makes it interesting. I would be surprised if all the big OEMs are not thinking of atleast one serious EV by that time. Paying a lot of money to Tesla (and Nissan, if they sell it) would not be palatable to the likes of Mercedes and VW.

Yes that makes it interesting. I would be surprised if all the big OEMs are not thinking of atleast one serious EV by that time. Paying a lot of money to Tesla (and Nissan, if they sell it) would not be palatable to the likes of Mercedes and VW.

They don't need an EV; just ZEV. Toyota will move into Phase IV with a hydrogen car (2015 - 2017 model years).

And it doesn't have to "be serious", either. Just enough to meet the threshold to be allowed to sell juicy, polluting, oil burning cars, trucks, SUV's, etc, by the millions.

And it doesn't have to "be serious", either. Just enough to meet the threshold to be allowed to sell juicy, polluting, oil burning cars, trucks, SUV's, etc, by the millions.

I think at 3%, it starts getting somewhat serious.

Nissan has sold 520k cars this year. 3% of that is 15k cars. Assuming 50% of ICE sales are covered by ZEV rules, it would be 7.5k cars in 5 months i.e. 1,500 cars per month. That is probably what Leaf is selling in ZEV states right now.

Toyota has to sell a lot more, with sales nearly double of Nissan. Same for Ford, Honda, GM, Chrysler & Hyundai+Kia who all sell more than Nissan.

Zythryn wrote:I believe the ZEV credits are based on cars sold in California, aren't they?

Check rest of my post. 14 states require ZEV (under section 177 or something like that). Also check the link to TMC I posted.

The following states are CARB-ZEV "coalition" states - California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Right now, all the credits can be earned in California, however, starting in 2018, the credits must be earned in all the states... EXCEPT for hydrogen. The manufacturers can sell hydrogen cars only in California and it counts in all CARB-ZEV states.

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The "big six" Large Vehicle Manufacturers (LVM) auto manufacturers of the world (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, GM, Ford, Fiat/Chrysler) were required to begin the modern day CARB-ZEV rules, starting in 2012. That's is exactly what Toyota did with Rav4 EV.

Therefore over three years, there are 900,000 oil burner Toyota cars sold in California.

The current 0.79% credits rule of Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) sales means 7110 credits over three model years. Each Rav4 EV earns 3 credits each, so 2370 battery electric cars solve that over the three model years.

But, the 9 credit hydrogen car need only 790 individual sales over three model years, or 263 per each model year during 2015 - 2017.

If the 9 credits for hydrogen are retained, then Toyota would only have to sell 5,333 hydrogen cars per year IN CALIFORNIA ONLY (none in the several other CARB-ZEV states) without any battery electric cars sold, even at 16% of total credits in model year 2025!!!!

That's about the current 2 month sales of the LEAF in the USA, and perhaps 3-6 months of the current California only LEAF sales. Again, I'm talking about 2025 model year ZEV compliance with nothing but a hydrogen car with California tax payer funded refueling stations.

Hydrogen is WIN - WIN for Toyota and others in the hydrogen camp that really don't wish to be in the ZEV game.

Soichiro Okudaira, chief officer of Toyota’s research and development group, told Automotive News Europe said that fuel cell vehicles won't be priced to compete with battery electrics before 2030.